Thursday, May 24, 2018

Last
October, SEIU fired
Jennings amidst a widening harassment scandal kicked off by
revelations about former SEIU Executive Vice President Scott Courtney.

Jennings, a
director of SEIU’s “Fight for $15”
campaign in Detroit, was fired following allegations he operated as a “mini-Scott
Courtney” who “relished bullying people and trying to intimidate them
(especially women),” according to an anonymous source.

In 2017, a
female SEIU organizer won more than $20,000 in back pay and a reinstatement
order from an NLRB judge after Jennings wrongfully terminated her as an
organizer in the “Fight for $15” campaign. According to
BuzzFeed,
Jennings “became violent, ripping [the female organizer’s] work phone out of
her hands and subsequently shoving her against a door frame.”

So what’s Jennings
doing now?

Here’s a
clue:

That’s
right. Jennings has become an “expert” in helping to gentrify Chicago by
converting multi-unit apartment buildings into AirBnb hotels.

Not unsurprisingly, Jennings
has already raised the ire of Chicago community leaders and anti-displacement
advocates.

The contradictions in Caleb's career path are not unusual for SEIU officials. You could say he’s had a lot of "entrepreneurial" role models at SEIU like Andy Stern (who’s been busy padding his pockets as a high-paid consultant for Uber, Airbnb, Handy and other tech companies) and Tyrone
Freeman (who's now running a consulting firm to help homecare companies make more profit).

Friday, May 18, 2018

Next week,
the Alliance of Health Care Unions
will begin bargaining with Kaiser
Permanente, according to sources. The Alliance includes the Teamsters,
Steelworkers, AFSCME, American Federation of Teachers, UFCW, ILWU, Operating
Engineers and the KPNAA.

What about
the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente
Unions (SEIU, OPEIU and IFPTE)?

Coalition leaders
will meet next Tuesday to discuss their response to Kaiser’s proposal to enter
into a new partnership deal with the giant HMO, say sources.

What’s
Kaiser’s proposal?

After the
partnership unions fractured
in two over Dave Regan’s effort
to seize more decision-making power, Kaiser
gathered representatives from nearly all its unions on May 7 at the
Marriott Hotel in Oakland and told them Kaiser would like to become partners
with each of the two coalitions. Kaiser handed out a draft partnership
agreement -- basically a modified version of the original agreement signed in the
1990s.

The new
agreement has provisions that appear to be designed specifically to deal with SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan and the problems that swirl around him like stripes on a candy cane.

For example,
one new provision would bar members of the partnership from backing “harmful” ballot
initiatives or legislation. It looks like Kaiser adopted the
same language that Regan penned into his
secret deal with the California
Hospital Association in 2014. The draft agreement reads:

Members of the Partnership, including KP and
all individual local unions who are members of the Partnership, shall not
pursue, sponsor or support legislation or ballot initiatives, which are
specifically targeted at and the primary purpose of which is to harm another
member of the Partnership. A Member of the Partnership who violates this
section shall be expelled from the Partnership…

Another new
provision would allow unions to expel a union from the partnership by majority
vote. We can call this the “Dave Regan rule.” The draft agreement says:

…there may come a time when a majority of
Union Parties believe there is cause to expel an individual union party. Should
this occur, the Union Parties may expel an individual union party by majority
vote of the senior union leadership designated from the union parties (not
counting the individual union to be expelled).

Meanwhile, Regan
and the Coalition have been stung by Kaiser’s announcement that it will not negotiate
a “national agreement” with the Coalition this year. The current “national
agreement” expires on September 30, 2018.

Earlier this
week, the Coalition filed an “unfair labor practice” charge with the NLRB
alleging that Kaiser’s action is illegal. (See a copy of the Coalition’s
leaflet below.) The NLRB will now conduct an investigation to determine whether
there’s any substance to the Coalition’s allegations.

Also, the
Coalition asked the leaders of some affiliated unions to send a letter to Kaiser
CEO Bernard Tyson to ask him why Kaiser
is not bargaining a national agreement with the Coalition this year. Observers
describe the letter as “pathetic.” See below.

Meanwhile, NUHW has already scheduled multiple
dates this summer to bargain with Kaiser over contracts covering 4,000 workers that
expire September 30.

In another
interesting move, Kaiser has reportedly asked NUHW to consider forming a more
collaborative relationship with the HMO. Sources say NUHW ruled out the idea of
joining either of the partnership groups. However, its rank-and-file leaders
are reportedly discussing whether they’re open to negotiating one-on-one with
Kaiser over their future relationship.

Thursday, May 10, 2018

This week, Kaiser Permanente finally revealed how
it’s going to deal with its now fractured “partnership” unions.

On Monday,
Kaiser’s executives gathered about 100 representatives from nearly all of its
unions in a ballroom at the downtown Marriott Hotel in Oakland, Calif. In
attendance were leaders from both of the partnership groups including SEIU-UHW’s
Dave Regan, AFSCME’s Denise Duncan, Pete
diCicco, Walter Allen, and Hal
Ruddick.

Kaiser’s executives
-- including Greg Adams, Dennis Dabney, Jim Pruitt and Chuck
Columbus -- announced they will not bargain with either the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions or
SEIU-UHW this year.

Kaiser,
however, will begin negotiating in the weeks ahead with the newly formed Alliance of Health Care Unions for
contracts covering most of the Alliance’s members. Kaiser says it’ll negotiate with
the Alliance unions at a single bargaining table, although it plans to sign separate
labor contracts with each Alliance union rather than a single “national
agreement.”

When will
Kaiser bargain with SEIU-UHW?

Not until next
year, when SEIU-UHW’s local union contract expires.

So why is
Kaiser bargaining first with the Alliance unions?

According to
Kaiser, it’s scheduling bargaining according to the expiration dates of each
union’s so-called “local agreement.” (Note: In addition to a single “national
agreement,” each partnership union also bargains a “local agreement” that covers
issues specific to that particular part of Kaiser’s workforce.)

It turns out
that most of the Alliance unions’ “local agreements” expire in 2018. Meanwhile,
virtually all of the Coalition unions’ local agreements don’t expire until
2019.

Dave Regan

Kaiser’s
announcement on Monday represents a big setback for Regan, who attended the Marriott
meeting with Greg Pullman (Regan's Chief of Staff), Bruce Harland (Regan’s hack attorney),
and several others.

Why?

The Alliance
unions will go to the bargaining table first… before Regan and the other
Coalition unions. This will allow the Alliance to set a pattern as far as
wages, benefits and working conditions that Kaiser will undoubtedly ask
SEIU-UHW to follow.

That’s precisely
the opposite
outcome from what Regan has been trying to achieve.

Since at
least 2017, he made multiple attempts to seize control of the Coalition so he’d
have greater power over this year’s national bargaining.

Now, as a
result of overplaying his hand and expertly exploding
the partnership unions into pieces, national bargaining has been canceled
and Regan -- along with SEIU-UHW’s members -- have been relegated to the back seat.

In addition,
Regan has successfully destroyed the unity among Kaiser’s 29 partnership
unions. This will likely allow Kaiser to drive further wedges between them.

How did
Reagan react to Kaiser’s announcement on Monday?

One hint
comes from the red-hot rhetoric that SEIU-UHW used in an update to its members after
the meeting. Here’s an excerpt:

Kaiser said they will refuse to negotiate a
new National Agreement, leaving each union to bargain their own local agreement…
The level of arrogance and contempt from Kaiser leadership in the meeting was
palpable. There is no Partnership in Kaiser’s mind… Kaiser’s idea of
“Partnership” is more like a Dictatorship. SEIU-UHW and our Coalition allies
will not stand for this.

Friday, May 4, 2018

Staffers at
the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions
are “jumping ship” following the decision by eight international unions to quit
the coalition and form a new alliance of “partnership” unions, say sources.

Who’s
leaving?

Maureen Anderson, a “Program Coordinator”
and one of the Coalition’s top staffers for more than a decade, is one of them.
And 4 to 5 other staffers also quit, say Tasty’s sources.

Why are they
jumping ship?

Apparently,
they’re leaving for the same reason that the eight international union recently
quit the Coalition:

“They want out
because no one can stand Dave [Regan],” says a source.

After the
exodus of the unions in March, SEIU-UHW’s
Dave Regan became the “Chairman” of
the now-smaller Coalition and has been playing a bigger role in its daily
operations.

Here’s
another interesting development.

Hal Ruddick, the Coalition’s Executive
Director who was recently
fired by Regan, has reportedly taken a job at the newly formed rival alliance
of partnership unions. Tasty doesn’t yet know what role he’ll be playing there.

The new alliance
of unions -- called the “Alliance of Health Care Unions” -- hiredPete diCicco as its Executive
Director, according to a March 30 press release.

In other
news, the Coalition confirmed Tasty’s earlier report about Ruddick’s exit and
the appointment of Walter Allen as
the Coalition’s interim Executive Director.

Hal Ruddick, who has served as executive
director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions for four years, is
stepping down, and Walter Allen, OPEIU Local 30 executive director, will be
serving as the coalition’s acting executive director.

With Regan
at the helm, it sounds like there’ll be more rough sledding in the days ahead
for the Coalition.

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